Celebrating Yellowstone Park

This post was written by Marybeth Kavanagh, Reference Archivist

As a previous blog post has explained, Yellowstone National Park was established by Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first National Park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. So we’re celebrating by sharing these stunning images taken by photographer William Henry Jackson.

Plate 30, Palace Butte Park. Y-f 1873.Jackson

geyser crater — Plate 10, Upper Fire-Hole Basin from the Crater of “Old Faithful” Y-f 1873.Jackson

falls — Plate 18, Lower Falls of the Yellowstone. Y-f 1873.Jackson

Survey team — Plate 3, Meeting of the U.S. Geological Survey in the Lower Fire-Hole Basin. Y-f 1873.Jackson

Jackson took these photographs as part of the Department of the Interior’s Geological Survey of the Territories, headed by geologist F.V. Hayden. They were published in 1873; the library holds a copy of the volume: Photographs of the Yellowstone National Park and views in Montana and Wyoming territories.

Rare photographs of Hart Island, New York's potter's field

April 17, 2019

To mark the 150th anniversary of the first burial on Hart Island, April 20, 1869, we revisit this post originally published in 2013. Off-limit to the public for over 35 years, Hart Island -- a mile-long island off the eastern coast of the Bronx -- has remained one of New York City's most closely guarded secrets. It is the home of New York's "potter's field," for those who can't afford to pay for burial, or whose identity...Read More

Our New View of Central Park

February 21, 2018

Generous members of the New-York Historical Society's Library Committee made possible our recent acquisition of John Bachmann’s lithograph, View of Central Park, New York, printed around 1875. It joins the twenty-two other works by Bachmann in our Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections (click here to read more about them). Swiss born and trained in Paris, John Bachmann (1814-1896) was a highly respected artist and lithographer who was especially known for his mid-nineteenth century bird’s-eye views of...Read More

Laura Morgan, M.D.

March 13, 2019

New-York Historical recently acquired a small set of documents related to a 19th century medical doctor, one Laura Morgan. The documents are mostly ephemera dating from the 1860s-1880s, such as admission tickets, business cards, programs. But still waters run deep and these simple fragments lie on the surface of a rich history of women pioneers attempting to enter the medical profession in the Anglo-American world. Among the fragments in the collection are tickets acknowledging Laura Morgan...Read More

Blog Icon

About

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Museum & Library Map

Address

Hours

Museum galleries and Museum store

Patricia D. Klingenstein Library